Sunshine
by A Lonely God
Summary: Joel cannot get Sarah to go to sleep. Request for a friend.


"Sarah? Sarah, baby, please. Please stop cryin'." Joel rocked the baby soothingly in his arms, "Oh, baby…"

The child in his arms was less than two months old. She was a beautiful little thing, a mess of blonde curls and pale skin and grey eyes. She was wrapped in a soft pink blanket and dressed in a little night time jumper, and she was also wailing at the top of her brand new lungs.

Joel's perpetual headache had been ongoing for almost three days. Sarah's constant screaming had been taking place for nearly four. He could feel sharp twinges of pain behind his eyes and at the base of his skull. Joel cringed; this was never going to end.

It was early March. School was still in session. Joel was going to lose his mind. Sarah's mother had left him with her while she went away for the weekend with friends. He wasn't sure whether or not that was the most responsible way to behave, but then he had felt guilty about his significant lack of activity as a parent, so he accepted his duties as a father – someone's dad, it had finally dawned upon him – and he had ushered her out the door. He was regretting that decision now.

Not that Joel didn't love Sarah – in fact, quite the opposite was true. As soon as he had set eyes upon the wrinkly little baby with blonde wisps of hair; as soon as he had _held_ her in his arms, he'd fallen in love. It was just that now Joel was being driven towards insomnia by screaming that he swore was louder than a jet plane.

Joel closed his eyes, still rocking Sarah back and forth, and tried to forget about the essay he had due Monday. It was unlikely that he would have written it had Sarah not been in his care, but she made for an excellent excuse.

Her screaming had died down to a seemingly manageable level, but all hell broke loose when he breathed a sigh of relief. The wailing started up again, and Joel cringed.

"C'mon, Sarah," He leaned down and kissed her forehead, feeling with his lips how hot her skin was from crying, "Baby, it's okay. It's okay. C'mon now, stop your cryin'."

The house was empty, which Joel was grateful for. If his parents and Tommy had have been around, he wasn't quite sure he'd have been able to live through both the lectures on how to raise a child, and the constant teasing from his little brother. Instead, while they were out enjoying dinner, Joel was standing in the middle of the basement, in front of a leather couch and a collapsible crib.

He looked desperately down at the baby – his _daughter_ – and prayed to whatever deity would listen that she would stop. He'd tried feeding her, which had been one hell of a success story. The bottle had been spit out, batted out of his hands, and had then ended by cheerfully rolling across the floor and spilling.

Joel squeezed her in an awkward hug, "Are you hungry? I can make another bottle, Sarah, but you can't go throwin' stuff on the floor. I'm gonna be broke."

The baby's eyes watered and reddened, and the crying didn't stop. Looking down at her broke his heart; he wasn't sure why she was so upset, and it made him upset.

Why? Because no one believed he could be a good father. And since the day of his child's birth, Joel had set out to prove all of those people wrong. He just, you know, had to get her to stop crying, first. And more than anything in the world, Joel wanted his mother to come home and help him.

She hadn't been jumping for joy at the thought of her teenage son having a daughter, but she had fallen in love with the baby just as much as he had; and if anyone knew what they were doing when it came to children, it was his mother.

"Are you tired?" He tried, "Baby girl, it's okay. Do you wanna lay in your crib?"

He wasn't sure why he was expecting an answer, but all he wanted was for Sarah to be able to communicate with him. Crying was not cutting it. Joel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something, _anything_ he could do.

_You have no idea how to be a father, Joel_. His father had said those words, almost ashamed, when Joel had told him the news. _You can't just strum the kid a couple chords on a guitar and expect her to keep quiet. You gotta raise a baby, son._

And thinking about his father's scolding gave him the perfect idea. Joel set Sarah down on the leather couch.

"You stay there, Sarah, alright? Daddy'll be back in a second."

Joel realized when he was rushing to his bedroom that leaving his child lying on her back on a leather sofa was probably not his brightest idea, and that if _his_ mother knew she'd have killed him, but he was willing to do anything to stop the screaming.

Sarah was still on the couch when he got back, and with a little bit of a smile, he picked her up and laid her gently in the small crib. He held his guitar in his lap.

"Daddy is gonna sing you a lullaby, okay baby?" Joel whispered, watching the baby closely, "You just lay there and think about sleepin', okay?"

Joel did not know many quiet songs. He knew loud, rowdy country music. That was his forte. But a two month old, screaming baby would likely not take well to such sound coming from his beat up six-string. He scavenged in the back of his mind for something that would put Sarah to sleep.

"Here, Sarah, I think you'll like this one. Hush, now, listen. Okay?" Joel settled himself comfortably on the couch, and Sarah looked up at him, still crying. Joel opened his mouth to sing to her.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey," He sang as quietly as he could, for he was worried he would make it worse by singing at full volume.

Joel perked up a little bit when the crying was reduced to whimpers, and Sarah looked up with him, grey eyes wide and bright. He grinned, "You'll never know dear, how much I love you; please don't take my sunshine away."

The song was short, and the singing far from perfect, but Sarah had stopped crying. Feeling more than victorious, Joel leaned down into the crib and kissed her on the head again. Instead of breaking into tears again, she giggled and closed heavy eyelids. Joel smiled.

"Y'know what?" He said, yawning and hoping to God that the pain in his head would ease, "I could go for a nap too, sunshine."

* * *

**[an] My friends are perfect people and so when I encouraged one of them to write a fic they had been planning, THEY DID. So therefore, I am obligated to repay the favor. Certainly not my best piece, but this is slightly cute and I do like it. I want to know everything about Joel's past. I want to know what happened with Sarah, and her mother, and I want to know how he was with her, operating under the assumption that he was a teenager when she was born (at least, he said in the game he was really young). Essentially, I had to make it happen myself.**

**Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this somehow, and I hope that you'll review! **

**Cheers!**

**Katelyn [an]**


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